The Meaning Of Bliss
by Isodriel
Summary: Post Chosen. In Rome, Buffy is getting ready to marry the perfect man, while in LA, Angel's finally been given his greatest wish. So why do flashbacks from the past keep sneaking up on them? And more importantly, is it too late to do anything about it? BA
1. Blue Skies

**Author's Note: **Brought on by a late-night viewing of most of the BtVS Season 1 DVD and putting KT Tunstall's _Under The Weather_ on repeat. Warning: all chapters will probably contain equal amounts of sappiness. Also, my name isn't Joss and I don't speak Italian (so don't get on my case about non-English grammar).

**1. Blue Skies**

**Her**

"Che bella giornata!"

Buffy Summers leaned back into the cushions of a wicker armchair, tipped her head back and shut her eyes against the sunshine that bathed the entire overgrown garden in deliciously balmy warmth. "Mmm," she agreed, in a tone that denoted deep satisfaction. "But it's pronounced 'kay', not 'chay'."

"Really?" Dawn Summers leant forward so that her chestnut brown hair, long grown past waist-length, cascaded onto the pages of the language textbook she had spread open on her lap. "Oh, right. Why can't they just write it the way you're supposed to say it?"

Buffy couldn't be bothered to respond. A beautiful languidness was slowly settling over her, and she knew that in a few moments she would probably fall asleep. With a springy three-inch growth of grass under her bare feet and an ancient lemon tree spreading its branches barely a foot over her head, she couldn't think of a better place to do it in.

"Come sarà il tempo domani?" Dawn sighed and repeated the phrase more slowly, trying to lock it in place in her memory. Although her Italian was rapidly improving, it still wasn't as good as Buffy's. She squinted at her sister and stuck her tongue out at her. It wasn't fair. But then again, she reflected saucily, Buffy _did_ have the best of teachers helping her, while Dawn harbored the theory that her own Second Language Italian teacher had died back in the 60's and no one had noticed.

She shut the textbook, promising herself that she'd look over it again later. She turned to Buffy. "Isn't Marius supposed to be coming over tonight? Because if he is, I think I might as well warn you that we've got nothing left to eat in the house. Well, except for that funky cheese Signora Albertinos gave us last week, and I'm not _sure_ that it's poisonous, but going by the number of mice that ran away from that piece I dropped yesterday, it probably is."

This information was greeted with a silence broken only by faint birdsong. "Hellooo? Buffy?"

---

"Who are you?"

It was stupid question, really. Like she was expecting him to provide a full name – something normal and boring – and tell her what he did for a living. As though he looked like the kind of guy that spent most of his days at a desk, typing up reports and crunching numbers.

"Let's just say... I'm a friend."

So simple, that word. Friend. It didn't really mean anything, if she thought about it. The milkman whose name you didn't know and didn't care to know could be your friend, just because you exchanged polite smiles with him every morning.

"Yeah, well, maybe I don't want a friend."

Fake bravado. But in one sense, she had been right. She didn't want friends – she_ needed_ them, the same way she needed the sharpened stake she carried constantly. The same way she needed to not show that he had made an impression on her.

"I didn't say I was yours."

And then he had walked away. And in some very small way, that had hurt. She wasn't expecting it. It added another quality to the short but unique mental list she had drawn up. So far it read: pale, tall, broody, handsome (she had added this reluctantly), annoyingly cryptic, and slightly less annoyingly unpredictable.

---

**Him **

So this was Heaven.

He wasn't lying on a fluffy, blindingly white, illogically substantial cloud. There were no weight-challenged, scantily dressed cherubs twanging miniature harps over his head. As far as he could tell, he hadn't grown any massive feathery wings, and he still had no idea what a pearly gate was supposed to look like.

Apparently, Heaven didn't involve any of those things.

What it involved was a small, innocuously charming diner in in downtown Los Angeles. An unusually mild summer's day – just enough sunshine to keep the smiles on people's faces, not enough heat to irritate anyone. And a plate of pancakes. No one had ever told him about the miracle that was a pile of hot pancakes. If he hadn't tasted it for himself, he would never have believed anything could be so heart-warmingly good as the luscious mixture of maple syrup and melting butter. After over two hundred and fifty years of being exclusively bound to the harshly metallic taste of blood, he still wasn't quite sure he believed it.

He wasn't eating quickly. There was absolutely no need to rush. There was nowhere he needed to be that day, no one to please by showing up at certain place at a certain time, wearing a certain type of clothing. There were, perhaps, a few lives that needed saving, but someone else would deal with those. He didn't even feel guilty about leaving the hero act to the humans. He was certain they'd do just as good a job of it as he ever could, since he was no longer stronger, or faster, or more able than the average human.

No, he _was _the average human. Beating heart, working pulse, regular inhale-exhale breathing. Warm skin (he had washed his hands in hot water that morning and watched in wonder as the skin on his palms turned red), solid reflection (he had spent an immeasurable amount of time staring montionless at his reflection in a store window, until one of the store clerks had come out to shoo him away). He felt hunger, and thirst. He finally understood the purpose of sunglasses.

He didn't have a job, or enough money to cover next month's rent on the tiny apartment he slept in every night. He wasn't sure what the purpose of his life was anymore. And it didn't matter. Because incredibly, wondrously, amazingly enough, he was happy. And it wasn't the vague snatched-in-small-doses happiness of a vampire burdened with eternal remorse, either. It was there, all the time, completely, like gold dust running through his veins.

If there was anything missing from his better-than-perfect new existence, he wouldn't have admitted it for all the pancakes in the world. Not even to himself.

---

"Love makes you do the wacky."

She had said it so matter-of-factly, as though she, with her sixteen years of life experience, was already an expert on love. It had made him want to smile, but he'd stifled it for fear of insulting her.

"What?"

"Crazy stuff."

"Oh. Crazy, like a two-hundred-and-forty-one-year-old being jealous of a high school junior?"

He had meant it to sound self-deprecating, but he had suddenly realized that it might just have sounded pathetic and mentally kicked himself for it.

"Are you fessing up?"

That tone, that teasing, a-ha-I've-got-you-now tone. It drove him wild.

"I've thought about it. Maybe it bothers me a little."

He was such a bad liar. It had bothered him more than just a little.

"I don't love Xander."

And he had needed badly to hear her say that. He had already known it, but being the insecure wreck that he was whenever she was inolved, he had needed to hear it.

"Yeah, but he's in your life. He gets to be there when I can't. Take your classes, eat your meals, hear your jokes and complaints. He gets to see you in the sunlight."

A lot of things had changed since then. Some things hadn't.

---

**Author's Note: **To be continued on condition of feedback and/or cookies.


	2. Nothing To Lose

**Author's Note: **Yay, I got feedback _and _cookies. :-) Although I gotta say, there was a lot less nitpicking involved in the cookies. Artistic license is a good thing, people.

**2. Nothing To Lose **

**Her**

"Y-you even look pretty when you go to sleep."

The first real compliment he'd ever given her.

"Well, when I wake up it's an entirely different story."

She'd brushed it off, not wanting to show him how pleased she was. It had been difficult enough just dealing with having him in her bedroom. The fact that he was going to sleep on a comforter on the floor rather than in her bed didn't seem to make her any less nervous.

"Angel?"

She still wasn't completely used to saying his name. To herself she admitted that she'd never really gotten used to it, because there was always that tiny thrill involved in saying it out loud.

"Hmm?"

"Do you snore?"

She hadn't known then that he didn't breathe. She had thought of him as a man – perhaps not the most normal of men, but one who at least had a heartbeat.

"I don't know. It's been a long time since anybody's been in a position to let me know."

And that answer had made her happy, because lurking in the back of her mind had been a vague jealous worry about other girls. Prettier girls. And just like the thrill of saying his name, even after years of separation, that worry was still there.

---

She became gradually aware that someone was asking her a question, and as she snapped back into the present a familiar face came into focus. Regular, graceful features, including gorgeously expressive hazel eyes; skin tanned by regular exposure to the Italian sun; a mass of collar-length silky black hair and, of course, that smile. Before she'd even known his name, she'd fallen in love with Marius De Martino's smile.

"Thank God. I was starting to think about pulling over at the nearest clinic." The smile wavered and he laid a gentle hand on her cheek, keeping the other one on the steering wheel. "Are you all right?"

She put an effort into looking as though she hadn't just slipstreamed into a vivid flashback involving an ex-lover. _You're here now,_ she reminded herself. _Here. Now. With Marius. Not… anyone else. _ "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry for zoning out on you."

"Nessun problema. You didn't miss out on much." He gestured with his free hand to indicate the empty stretch of road ahead of them. The scenery on either side consisted mainly of steep hillocks covered in straggly brushwood and gnarled olive trees, and Buffy realized that they were at least half an hour's drive out of Rome and heading towards the Alban Hills. Marius's family lived in one of the villages in the area known as the Castelli Romani, where they owned a considerably large vineyard.

"My mother called a while ago to tell us that they're going to be through the piatto secondo by the time we get there, and to not blame her if we end up going hungry."

Buffy laughed. "Did you happen to mention that we've already had dinner?"

He looked shocked. "Are you mad? Saying that to my mother is like telling her we don't like her cooking. She'd kill us both just to save her reputation as the best cook in Monte Compatri."

Alessa De Martino was a staunch, sun-bronzed woman whose fierceness belied her warm heart. She'd been initially aloof with Buffy, unsure of what her son saw in the petite blond American that made him prefer her to a decent Italian girl. But as time went on she grew accustomed to Buffy's quirks (of which, in the eyes of a mother-in-law, there were many) and came to regard her as a welcome addition to the family.

"I should probably warn you, she's going to pressure us about setting a date as soon as we walk through the door."

"Again? I thought you'd out-maneuvered her the last time with that talk about unstable weather patterns and 'letting destiny decide'. Which, by the way, was very impressive. I was about two seconds away from cracking and agreeing to whatever date she suggested next."

"Really?" He darted a quick glance at her. "So how about we save her the trouble and set a date ourselves?"

"What, now?" She hadn't really been expecting this turn in the conversation. "Wouldn't that be a little spur-of -the-moment-y?"

"Maybe. But we've always said we wanted a July wedding, so all we're really doing is putting a number on it."

She was silent. Part of her wanted to tell him that she'd been thinking about _next_ July. That was the part that was still Buffy Summers, queen of failed relationships and dysfunctionality; the same part that was afraid of commitment and of trying to lead any kind of normal life.

But another part wanted to marry him as soon as possible. That was the part that was tired of being a Slayer, tired of saving the world and having nothing to show for it, tired of being abandoned. Tired of being alone. Marius was offering her the kind of life she'd always dreamt of – stable, happy, comfortable. And as a bonus, Dawn definitely approved of him and they got on astonishingly well together.

So she had nothing to lose by becoming Buffy De Martino, except perhaps a last lingering thread of hope that someday she'd be reunited with Angel. And as far as she was concerned, it was about time that thread was cut.

It was time to stop wanting what she couldn't have.

---

**Author's Note**: Next chapter, it's Angel's turn.


End file.
